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BOOK: ‘Profiting from Clean Energy’ provides a comprehensive investment guide
Monday, 26 May 2008

(EnergyAsia, May 26, Monday) --- ‘Profiting from Clean Energy’, a book by professional investment analyst and advisor Richard W. Asplund, explains and discusses ways to invest in clean energy.

It provides an in-depth explanation of the technology and industry structures, and identifies more than 150 stocks related to clean energy.

Topics include clean energy investments and performance, catalysts for the clean energy industry, governments role, clean energy potential, solar power, wind power, fuel cells, geothermal power, power efficiency, smart meters, power storage and backup systems, clean transportation, biofuels and ethanol, trading biofuels markets, coal, carbon trading.

For more information, please contact This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it . Check out www.EnergyAsia.com for energy finance books.
 
BOOK: Lloyd’s List released ‘Ports of the World 2008’
Friday, 23 May 2008

(EnergyAsia, May 23, Friday) --- Lloyd’s List has released ‘Ports of the World 2008’ which features 100 full page maps of the top 100 ports and harbours and lists over 2800 of the world’s most commercially active ports.

Published in three A4-sized volumes, the directory presents essential details of over 19,000 port facilities and services.

It provides exact port coordinates, approach, map, principal facilities, anchorage, pilotage, radio frequency, local climate including tides, principal imports and exports, working hours, bunkering, towage, medical facilities, nearest amenities, Lloyd’s Agent, maximum vessel dimensions and pre-arrival information. 

‘Ports of the World 2008’ is officially supported by the International Harbourmasters Association (IHMA) and the International Association of Ports and Harbours (IAPH). 

The book contains port data including latitude and longitude information, approach and pilotage requirements, port authority and officials contact details, storage facilities, mechanical handling equipment, admiralty chart and pilot numbers, UNCTAD locoed, key to principal facilities, port and terminal facilities, berth descriptions, holidays and normal working hours, shipping agents, ship repair facilities, medical facilities, surveyors, pilotage and radio frequency information, cranes, tide information, berth capacity (largest vessel), bunker suppliers, towage services, ship supplies and waste reception, anchorages, weather conditions, free trade zone data and distance from nearest airport.

For more information, please contact This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .

 
 
AUSTRALIA: ‘Coaltrans Australia’ to be held in Brisbane from July 28 to 29
Friday, 23 May 2008

(EnergyAsia, May 23, Friday) --- The fouth annual ‘Coaltrans Australia’, co-hosted with the ‘AusCoal Investment Forum’, will be held in Brisbane from July 28 to 29.

Coaltrans returns to the world’s largest coal exporting nation to explore Australia’s capacity to respond to the booming demand for coal in the Pacific market.

Topics covered include Australian coal in the global energy context, short and long term price scenarios for metcoal and steam coal, consumers’ perspective on securing supply, procurement challenges, impact of an emissions reduction strategy, clean coal technologies, freight rates, supply and demand trends, mine optimisation, remote basins development and rail and port infrastructure alignment.

Speakers at the event include Ian Alexander (John T Boyd Company), Peter Ball (Bumi Resources), Amandeep Bhatia (Bhatia International Ltd), Edek Choros (Ambre Energy), Jim Coleman (Riversdale Mining), Eoghan Cunningham (globalCOAL), Graham Dooley (Surat Basin Rail), Eileen Doyle (Port Waratah Coal Services Ltd), Justin Flood (Delta Electricity), Julie Forster (ATIC), Darren Fook (Clayton Utz),

Sean Galligan (Laing O’Rourke Australia Construction Pty Ltd), Philip Gasteen (Banpu Public Company Ltd), Phillip Glyde (ABARE), Bill Graybeal (CC Carbon), Robin Griffin (Barlow Jonker), Ralph Hillman (Australian Coal Association), David Irving (Pacific National), Akio Jo (Tsuneishi Holding Corporation), Denise McMillan (Australian Rail Track Corporation), Peter Malpas (Braemar Seascope), Luis A. Martinez T (Gemcom Software Australia Pty Ltd),

Gary Millar (Mincom Limited), John Murray (Swann Group), Eris O’Brien (CO2CRC), Ross Parslow (Connell Hatch), Tony Pegum (Braemar Seascope), Greg Smith (Prime Infrastructure), John Smith (BHP Billiton Mitsubishi Alliance), Chris Spero, (CS Energy), Dennis Trappitt (TFS Asia-Pacific), Craig Windram (E3 International), Leo Zussino (Gladstone Port Corporation), Anthony Collins (Australian Stock Exchange), Michael Hopkins and Dennis Trappitt (TFS Asia-Pacific), Jonathan Vandervoort (Hunter Valley Coal Chain Logistics Team), Bede Boyle (AustCoal Consulting Alliance), Paul Mulder (Hancock Prospecting Pty Ltd),

Mark Kelly (Gemcom Software Australia Pty Ltd), Chris Wheeler (ZeroGen), Stuart Dix (E3 International Pty Ltd / CarbonSim Pty Ltd), Aman Bhatia (Bhatia International Ltd), Douglas Fagundes Moreira (Gerdau Acominas SA), Martin Law (Ho-Ping Power Company),  Mohd Shaiful Bahari bin Hussain (TNB Fuels Services), Xiaoming Qiao (Upper Horn Investments (Guangdong Yudean)), Alan Heap (Citigroup), Lance Hockridge (QR National) and Leo Zussino (Gladstone Port Corporation).

For more information, please contact This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .
 
BOOK: Third Edition of ‘Port Management and Operations’ released
Thursday, 22 May 2008

(EnergyAsia, May 22, Thursday) --- The third edition of ‘Port Management and Operations’, an essential guide to port management in the 21st century, has just been released. 

The 12-chapter book provides a complete understanding of total port activity, enables managers working in specific areas of ports to see where they fit into the port's operation and commercial practice as a whole, offers an analysis of the various types of ports along with the common essential elements that enable them to function which include administration, management, economics and operations.

Topics covered include a general introduction to ports, port development, impact of changing ship technology on ports, sea approaches and maritime services, port administration ownership and management, port policy, berths and terminals, cargo and cargo handling, port labour, time in port and speed of cargo handling, port costs, prices and revenue and port environmental matters.

For more information on ‘Port Management and Operations’, please contact This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .
 
SINGAPORE: Advanced Holdings reports sharp rise in Q1 revenue to S$22.9 million, net profit of S$2.1
Thursday, 22 May 2008

(EnergyAsia, May 22, Thursday) --- Singapore’s Advanced Holdings Ltd said its first quarter net profit rose to S$2.1 million while its revenue surged from S$5 million to S$22.9 million over the same period last year. (US$1=S$1.36).

The company attributed its improved performance to increased contributions in established markets such as China and growing markets in other Asian countries.

With the improved financial results, Advanced achieved earnings of 0.66 cents per share and net asset value of 22.15 cents per share for the quarter.

It also ended the quarter in a strong position with net cash holdings of S$58 million, an up by around 13.9% from last December.

The strengthened financial position will allow it to take advantage of future acquisition and investment opportunities on the world market.

Managing director Kar Wong said: “The group’s excellent performance this quarter reflects the success of our four-pronged strategy to strengthen and drive our business and sales growth in our key markets.

“We also benefited from the ongoing boom in the global energy market, and sustained industrial growth in fast-growing emerging economies. We will continue to invest our resources in developing new markets, enhancing our professional capabilities and strengthening our geographical presence to enable us to better serve our customers.”

The company said it will pay shareholders an interim, tax-exempt dividend of 0.35 cents per share.

Founded in 1993, Advanced Holdings today designs, licenses and supplies proprietary process equipment and process technologies for its customers in the chemical, petrochemical, oil, gas, power generation and microelectronics industries.
 
MALAYSIA: Petronas to start up 1.7-million-tonne-per-year methanol plant in Labuan in September
Wednesday, 21 May 2008

(EnergyAsia, May 21, Wednesday) --- Malaysian state oil and gas company Petronas said its subsidiary, Petronas Methanol (Labuan) Sdn Bhd (PML), has started commissioning work of its methanol plant in Labuan port with the firing up of the plant's package boiler, the biggest in Asia.

The company expects the plant to begin full commercial production in September.

The package boiler was fabricated by steam generation systems specialist Cerrey SA de CV of Mexico, which was awarded the contract in March 2006 following an international bidding exercise in late 2005. The boiler, with a 260-tonne/hour capacity, was delivered to Labuan by MISC Bhd, another subsidiary of Petronas last June.
Local contractors, Sumatec, Dialog and Yokogawa Kontrol Malaysia, completed the plant’s installation work.

The operation of the boiler is supported by high quality feed water produced by a state-of-the-art reverse osmosis system, while electrical power is supplied from a 14-megawatt gas turbine generator which has been in operation since March this year.

The world-scale plant, which uses Lurgi's Mega Methanol technology, has a production capacity of 5,000 tonnes per day or 1.7 million tonnes per year. The plant will use about 150 million cubic feet of gas from the fields offshore Sabah as feedstock.
Construction started in 2005 and methanol produced from the new plant will be supplied to the domestic market as well the growing markets in Asia.
 
COMPANY: 3Com is leader in ‘green’ networking, said new research report
Wednesday, 21 May 2008

(EnergyAsia, May 21, Wednesday) –-- A new report by independent research firm In-Stat has found that Nasdaq-listed 3M Corp’s local area network (LAN) switches are up to 60% more energy efficient, or “green,” than competitors’ products.

The report said that by deploying an industry-leading switching solution from 3Com, customers can save money – and help the environment – by using significantly less electricity to power their high-performance networks.

The report, “Green Networking Equipment:  Who Leads and Who Lags,” says there are “significant differences in the energy efficiency of similarly equipped switch equipment” and that “as many businesses develop ‘green’ initiatives… IT managers will be forced to absorb some degree of responsibility for their organisation’s power usage.”

The report confirms the success of 3Com’s program to reduce energy consumption while increasing network functionality.

“Businesses worldwide are looking for effective ways to reduce energy use, both to save money and to conserve resources,” said Scott Hilton, vice president of enterprise products for 3Com. “Through innovative design, 3Com’s newest products use up to 78% less power than previous switches. It’s gratifying that In-Stat recognises 3Com’s industry leadership in this important area.”

Making their networks more energy efficient is fast becoming a top priority for CIOs.  In an exclusive survey of IT executives published by CIO magazine in March 2008, 75% of respondents cited either reducing operating costs or a commitment to social responsibility as the driver for making their IT operations greener.

3Com’s David Law, chairman of the IEEE 802.3 Ethernet Working group, said:

“At its March 2008 meeting, the IEEE P802.3az Energy-efficient Ethernet Task selected a Low-Power Idle proposal for both 1000BASE-T and 100BASE-T.  Work on selecting proposals for the remaining objectives will continue at the upcoming May meeting in Munich, Germany.  Standards approval is targeted for March 2010.”

In-Stat calculated the energy efficiency of 24-port and 48-port switches from leading vendors’ portfolios and 3Com products were the clear leaders in energy efficiency in both categories.

A comparison of the fabric capacity (Gbps) per watt of 24-port Gigabit Ethernet fixed, managed Layer 2 and 3 switches found that 3Com far outpaced the rest of the industry by delivering approximately 3.25 Gbps per watt.  No other vendor delivers as much as 2.0 Gbps per watt, according to In-Stat.

Among 48-port Gigabit Ethernet fixed, managed Layer 2 and 3 switches, 3Com again leads the field and is the only company able to deliver as much as 2.0 Gbps per watt.  In both categories, prominent vendors such as Cisco, HP ProCurve, Nortel and Foundry were at or near the bottom of In-Stat’s rankings.

3Com said it is working to deliver products that are even more energy-efficient. A key element of the company’s green plan is the 3Com® Open Services Networking (OSN) strategy.

Applications run on Open Services Modules (OSM) embedded within networking platforms, which makes it easy for enterprises and service providers to deliver a variety of enhanced services without having to deploy numerous single-task appliances that complicate network management, take up valuable facility space, and consume excessive power.  OSMs are currently available for 3Com router platforms and are currently scheduled for switching platforms later this year.

Over the past 18 months, 3Com said it has refreshed its Ethernet switching portfolio to take advantage of innovative energy-efficient components and designs.  The company’s research shows that upgrading older switches can deliver significant energy savings.

It said: “For example, customers running a 3Com Switch 4070 Gigabit small campus core switch who upgrade to the 3Com Switch 5500G switch will decrease energy use by 29%. Likewise, moving from the Switch 4400 Fast Ethernet edge switch to Switch 5500-EI family devices will enable businesses to reduce energy consumption by approximately 60%.”

3Com said it holds energy efficiency leadership over its competitors. It claims that the 3Com Switch 4500G 24-Port Gigabit switch consumes 20% less energy than the Cisco Catalyst 3560G-24TS and 11% less than the HP ProCurve 3400cl-24G, based on published watts per switch power consumption figures.

It said its Switch 4500G 48-Port consumes 25% less power than the Catalyst 3560G-48TS and 15% less than the HP ProCurve 3400cl-48G. Its Switch 4210 24-Port and Switch 4210 48-Port switches consume 30% and 17% less energy than the equivalent HP ProCurve 2510 24- and 48-port switches.

Com Corporation is a leading provider of secure, converged voice and data networking solutions for enterprises of all sizes.

 
 
SINGAPORE: Technics Oil &Gas Limited reports lower first half net profit
Tuesday, 20 May 2008

(EnergyAsia May 20, Tuesday) --- Singapore-listed Technics Oil and Gas Limited, an integrated specialist services provider serving the world oil and gas exploration and production industry, said its first-half revenue to March 31 2008 rose 17% to S$38.62 million. (US$1=S$1.36). Gross profit was up 28% to S$9.57 million.

However, its net profit fell to S$1.45 million compared to S$2.5 million in 1H FY2007.

The company attributed the increase to the completion of contracts and revenue recognised for various projects completed in FY2007.

Group managing director and founder Robin Ting said: “Technics had a good start to FY2008 in terms of new contracts secured. We have prepared ahead for our expansion and started to receive more enquiries, including our ability to take on supersize gas compression systems and process modules.

“Apart from beefing up our working capital requirements, we also invested heavily in our human capital. The costs of doing business in Singapore have gone up significantly. Administrative expenses rose by S$2.01 million or 49% in 1H FY2008.”

To prepare for expansion, Technics said it has recruited another 48 staff including project engineers and support staff during the financial half year.

Mr Tin said: “We are anticipating a better financial performance in 2H FY2008 compared to 1H FY2007. Over the longer term, we are confident of securing more high-value and more complex projects.”

Established in 1990 and listed on the Singapore Exchange since April 2003, Technics Oil & Gas is a one-stop specialist services provider to the oil and gas industry in the Asia Pacific region. Its customer base include major oil and gas companies, builders and operators of oil-rigs, semi-submersibles and floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) ships.
 
SOLAR: REEEP supports World Bank initiative on lighting Africa
Friday, 16 May 2008

(EnergyAsia, May 16, Friday) --- Last week in Ghana, 52 short-listed finalists of the international Lighting Africa competition were assessed by an international juror panel who selected 16 finalists.

Each finalist will receive up to $200,000 in seed funding to develop and implement their ideas, for a total of $3 million.

Marianne Osterkorn, international director of the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership (REEEP) based in Vienna, was one of 20 jurors involved in assessing the finalist proposals.

The Development Marketplace competition was part of a broader Lighting Africa 2008 conference held in Accra from May 5 to 8. Also in attendance and serving as a speaker was Alfred Ofosu Ahenkorah, a member of REEEP’s governing board and executive secretary Ghanaian Energy Commission.

After receiving over 400 proposals on innovative solutions for off-grid lighting for Africa from 54 countries, including 38 African countries, the Development Marketplace’s team of international assessors selected 52 projects that competed for the winning titles.

“Selecting the finalists was not an easy task,” said Dr Osterkorn. “We were very impressed with all the projects submitted to develop improved lighting products and services for low income households in Sub-Saharan Africa and they all offered sound business opportunities.”

Dr Ahenkorah commented that the winning projects would have major health benefits for the African continent.

“All projects selected will have direct impact on the lives of Africans including improved lighting quality for households, improved health impacts from higher quality lanterns and increased school retention and improved grades,” he said.

Anil Cabraal, lead energy specialist at the World Bank and one of the directors of the ‘Lighting Africa’ programme noted that “this was the first global business conference for off-grid lighting. It brought together over 400 participants from around the world to support the private sector in the innovation and delivery off-grid lighting products and solutions for Africa.

“These activities are aimed at accelerating access to non-fossil fuel-based, low cost, safe, clean and reliable lighting products with associated basic energy services.”

The Development Marketplace has been a key component of the ‘Lighting Africa’ programme and 2008 business conference. REEEP has been a key strategic partner in this effort.

Attending the ‘Lighting Africa 2008’ global conference were representatives from the lighting industry, international financial institutions, the private sector, government agencies, academia, and non-governmental organisations.

The Lighting Africa Development Marketplace Competition was funded by REEEP, the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the Public-Private Infrastructure Advisory Facility (PPIAF), the World Bank, the Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP), Good Energies, and the Governments of Netherlands and Norway.
 
SINGAPORE: Gasoline at record level well above S$2.10 per litre as oil companies raised fuel prices
Friday, 16 May 2008

(EnergyAsia, May 16, Friday) --- Singapore’s oil companies have again raised pump prices, with posted gasoline prices now well above S$2.10 per litre and diesel at more than S$1.76. (US$1=S$1.36).

Singapore Petroleum Company Limited (SPC) and Caltex announced their latest increases yesterday as pump prices hit yet another record level to follow on world crude prices reaching a record of nearly US$127 a barrel on Wednesday.

After the S$0.02 per litre increase, SPC’s premium 98 now sells for S$2.21 per litre, while premium 95 costs S$2.136 and regular 92 is priced at S$2.106. The company raised its diesel price by S$0.10 to S$1.763 per litre.

The company said it will continue to offer “promotional price discounts” on both fuels. 

Another major retailer, Caltex, also raised its gasoline prices by S$0.02 and diesel by S$0.10 per litre. 

Its three grades of gasoline now cost S$2.136, S$2.210 and S$2.336 while its diesel sells for S$1.763 before discount.
 
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